iapps
15 September 2012
I hope no one doubts my credentials for wanting industrial relations reform. After all, I drew up the first Coalition policy on the subject in 1985 and it was widely… Read more
No pollution solution
The good news is that Julia didn’t lie after all. When she said, ‘There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead’, she was, in her own unique… Read more
Party politics
I did not hit the town to celebrate on the night of 24 March 2011, when Barry O’Farrell swept to power in New South Wales. I imagine many did, however.… Read more
8 September 2012
Puzzling all the praise heaped on the Gonski report. It contains no new ideas and simply repeats the old discredited fantasy that money will solve all educational problems. The upshot… Read more
Calling the shots
On 19 August, film director Tony Scott parked his car on a bridge over Los Angeles harbour, climbed a 12-foot wire fence and jumped to his death without hesitating. He… Read more
Designed to fail
Another week, another hurried attempt by Julia Gillard to unbuckle herself from the dead weight of her own ideology-driven policies, which threaten to drag Labor to very cold and murky… Read more
Urban grillers
Remember when anti-Americanism was cool? Ten years ago, the broadsheet press and the ABC had not yet decided it ought to be illegal to make fun of the Prime Minister,… Read more
8 September 2012
Gerard Henderson is crackers. This is the only conclusion one can reach from his increasingly bizarre attacks on The Spectator Australia. As with all matters Henderson, this dispute started innocuously… Read more
Diary Australia: 8 September 2012
The Deep South Vicksburg, Mississippi is the place where the American Civil War was decided. Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant knew it. So did the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis.… Read more
War stories
The first and only political rally I ever joined in Australia was a large march through Sydney in February 2003. It was against Australia’s impending involvement in the invasion of… Read more
1 September 2012
Good news from the Territory: Bess Price has won the seat of Stuart. The 16 per cent swing in her favour is one in the eye for all those lefties… Read more
A visit from the Big Society
You would expect Phillip Blond to have nicer things to say about Malcolm Turnbull. The British political guru is most famous for being the house philosopher of David Cameron’s kinder,… Read more
Friendly advice
In the spirit of Oscar Wilde, who maintained that ‘a true friend stabs you in the front’, may we offer two Liberal lions who happen to be regular readers of… Read more
1 September 2012
After all the effort that many of us have put into making Australia a perfect multicultural society, free from jingoism and stereotyping, I was distressed to see our Prime Minister… Read more
Diary Australia 1 September 2012
Sydney airport, 6.30 a.m. Having spent the past 22 hours on a plane, we are queueing with our bags to pass through quarantine, and I’m getting irritated. From the corner… Read more
How not to govern
It is established wisdom in the Press Gallery that the Gillard-Abbott contest has eroded public respect for our political institutions and degraded our national debate to an internationally embarrassing level.… Read more
Diana as I knew her
It was one of those nights when you wake up the next morning with a distinct feeling that all is not well with the world, yourself included. So you turn… Read more
Conduct becoming
Every so often a programme appears which can be recommended even to people who hate television. Parade’s End (Friday, BBC1) is such a work. The awkward — one might think… Read more
Edinburgh snippets
I saw a few car crashes at Edinburgh but I’ll mention only one. Hells Bells (Pleasance, Courtyard) by the excellent Lynne Truss is a peculiar experiment. Truss sets her play… Read more
The great wall of Peckham
The Peckham Peace Wall began life as a window: a long pane of shop glass in the front of Rye Lane’s newly refurbished branch of Poundland. During the riots last… Read more
Latest blogs
- Obama’s Berlin speech was a damp squib Freddy Gray
- PMQs sketch: In which Labour join the coalition Lloyd Evans
- Michael Gove kindly warns Stephen Twigg: people think you’re weak Isabel Hardman
- ‘Jihad!’ Douglas Murray
- The Tories are still flummoxed by social media Isabel Hardman
- The Supreme Court Mothballs the British Army Alex Massie
- Ed Miliband’s negative approach at PMQs looks set to become the norm James Forsyth
